The present invention is directed to providing of photofinishing goods and/or services. In particular, providing an apparatus, method, and system for monitoring, and ordering of photofinishing goods and/or services at a retail establishment to be provided by a remote photofinishing lab.
The most common method of placing a photofinishing order is for a consumer to place their exposed film in an envelope marking the appropriate boxes to indicate the products that they desire and dropping the envelope at a retail store. The envelopes are picked up from the retail store and taken to a wholesale photofinisher where the orders are sorted by product or service ordered. This is done manually or by using a machine vision system, reading the checked boxes to determine the product ordered by the consumer. When the envelope contains unprocessed film, additional information about the order is entered at the film splicer. Today photofinishing orders are not limited to processing of photographic film. For example, customers may order reprints, photo CDs, picture disks (computer disks containing customer images), T-shirts with images and mugs having images, and placing images on an internet photo service provider""s data base. In addition the images may be provided to the photofinisher for processing in formats other than on film. For example, images may be provided digitally in the form of a computer disk or a memory device used with digital cameras.
A problem associated with the foregoing system is that the customer typically hand-writes the order on the order envelope. In some instances, the writing of the order is illegible which may result in the order being filled improperly or not fulfilled. This of course results in the customer being dissatisfied upon going back to the retailer to pickup the order and finding out that the order was incorrectly filled or could not be fulfilled.
The relative positioning of marketing information of products and/or services relative to other information to a customer is known to affect the purchasing habits of the customer. Generally product and/or service offerings are simply displayed using display devices which are cumbersome to change. This leaves the retailer to verbally advise a customer of recent changes or new offerings. Currently there is no easy or economical way of displaying modified and/or new offering for goods and/or services to a customer.
Another problem with the prior art systems, is that there is no easy way for tracking the likes and dislikes of customers at a particular retail establishment or in a regional location. Further there is little opportunity for a particular retail establishment which has one or multiple retail outlets for customizing or providing promotional services that can vary according to the desires of the retailer, local or regional trends, or in response to the customer.
The general volume of orders arriving at wholesale photofinishers is tracked and known by the hour of the day, day of the week and day of the year. Occasionally, a significant event occurs that changes the normal consumer buying patterns for a wholesale lab. Currently, the lab recognizes that this has occurred when the work arrives at the start of a shift leaving little time to make alternate arrangements to handle an increased workload or off load-another lab. The wholesale photofinishing typically receives orders from hundreds of different retail establishments, often from a chain of similar type establishments. For example, there are drug stores, grocery stores that will have a plurality of different stores which send their photofinishing order to a single photofinishing lab for a local regional area. Sometimes the retail establishment is a national concern having hundreds of different retail establishments which sends the photofinishing orders to more than one central photofinishing lab.
Another problem with the current system is that there is little opportunity to provide up-sales to the customer or advise the customer of additional goods and/or services that may be provided. While some advertisement may be done at the order drop-off center, typically there is no interaction with a retail agent and even if there is, it is not possible for the retail establishment to allow the retail agents to spend very much time with the customer. Thus, there is a need to have the ability to offer additional goods and/or services to the customer with as little disruption to the retail establishment and in a friendly and kind manner to the customer.
Applicants have invented an apparatus, method, and system directed to overcoming the problems of the prior art.
The present invention provides a relatively inexpensive system and method to track and analyze the buying patterns of consumers relative to the number and selection of products offered on a screen; the relative position of the individual products displayed; and the screens presented prior to and subsequent to an individual screen.
The present invention also provides an inexpensive method of modifying offerings of goods and/or services to customers.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention there is provided an apparatus for displaying photofinishing goods and/or services that are being offered for sale, comprising:
a display device for displaying photofinishing goods and/or services that are being offered for sale;
a computer for controlling what is displayed on the display device;
a computer software program for programming the computer so that a plurality of the photofinishing goods and/or services will be displayed on the display device, the computer software program monitoring the sales the photofinishing goods and/or services with respect to their position on the display device and re-arranging the position of the photofinishing goods and/or services on the display device based on the monitoring.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention there is provided an apparatus for displaying photofinishing goods and/or services that are being offered for sale, comprising:
a display device for displaying photofinishing goods and/or services that are being offered for sale;
a data entry device for entering an order dropped at the apparatus;
a computer for controlling what is being displayed on the display device;
a computer software program for programming the computer for monitor the sales the photofinishing goods and/or services entered into data entry device.
In accordance with yet another aspect of the present invention there is provided a system for displaying photofinishing goods and/or services at a plurality of different kiosks, each kiosk having a display device for displaying photofinishing goods and/or services that are being offered for sale, a data entry device for entering an order dropped at the apparatus, a computer for monitoring what has been entered into the kiosk, comprising;
a central computer in electronic communication with the computer of plurality of the kiosks, the central computer obtaining information regarding order that have been placed at the kiosks.
In accordance with still another aspect of the present invention there is provided a method for controlling a photofinishing product and/or service offering at a remote kiosk, comprising the steps of:
providing an initial product offering with respect to a plurality of goods and/or services on a display screen provided on the kiosk;
the initial product offering being provided in a first presentation sequence;
collection of order information with respect to orders placed at the kiosk; and
analyzing the order information and re-sequencing the presentation of the goods and/or services based on the analysis.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention there is provided an apparatus for displaying photofinishing goods and/or services on a display device;
a computer for controlling what is being displayed on the display device;
a software computer program such that when loaded on the computer will control what is being displayed on the display device;
the software segmenting the display device into a plurality of smaller visual segments in which graphical and/or text information may be provided;
a navigation section for building and/or rebuilding what is being displayed on the display device by controlling what is displayed in each of plurality of smaller segments.
In accordance with still another aspect of the present invention there is provided a system for monitoring and controlling work flow in a photofinishing lab comprising:
a computer for controlling individual devices in a photofinishing lab, the computer being in communication with a plurality of remote collection database systems, each of the collection database systems receives photofinishing orders of items placed in a collection package that are to be processed at the photofinishing lab and includes a data base for keeping track of the order it receives, the computer at a time prior to when the actual collection packages are received communicates with the remote collection database systems so as to obtain a order information of the collection packages that are to be forwarded to the photofinishing lab;
In another aspect of the present invention there is provided a method for monitoring and controlling work flow in a photo finishing lab, comprising:
a central computer located at the photofinishing lab;
a plurality of remote kiosks, each of the kiosks receives photofinishing orders of items placed in a collection container that are to be processed at the photofinishing lab and includes a data base for keeping track of the order it receives, the central computer at a time prior to when the actual collection packages are received communicates with the remote database so as to obtain order information of the orders that are to be forwarded to the photofinishing lab;